Five members of the same family have been rescued alive from a tribal region after a they had spent as long as five years in captivity.

A Canadian family has been rescued by the Pakistani security forces from Taliban captivity, five years after they were kidnapped from neighbouring Afghanistan.

This was revealed by officials on Thursday.

A Canadian man, his American wife and the couple’s three children were recovered from the tribal region of Kurram near the Afghan border, the military said in a statement.

The family was kidnapped, allegedly by militants linked with al-Qaeda in south-eastern Afghanistan, in 2012, the military said.

The recovery was carried out with information provided by American operatives stationed in Afghanistan, the statement added.

No further details about the family or the circumstances leading to their release were shared.

Islamist militants, especially those from the Haqqani network of the Afghan Taliban, were behind a string of kidnappings of Western citizens from Afghanistan in the past years.

Most of them were released, either in swaps for Taliban prisoners or when ransom was paid for them. No Western government or the group, however, ever admitted to ransoms being exchanged.

There was no independent verification of what led to the release of the family in this case.